Thai lotto is an enormous national pastime. Drawings take place twice every month — on the 1st and 16th — with over 19 million Thais buying tickets regularly for this national tradition. Prime-time television coverage as well as live streaming online add an air of prestige, while giving many low-income and middle-class Thais hope.
GLO is one of the major job creators in Thailand. Employing over 8,000 individuals annually, and producing billions in lotto tickets each year. Their products are used by almost all citizens of Thailand while revenue has reached over 10 billion baht annually. But some critics find their operations disturbing.
Street vendors selling Thai lotto tickets have become a familiar sight on Thai streets. Although lottery is legal in Thailand, its operators face difficulty making ends meet due to increasing regulation in this industry and losing ticket sales as more gamblers come out.
Thais are increasingly turning to buying lottery tickets online because it allows them to avoid the mark-ups seen at physical stores and offers higher payout rates compared to their offline counterparts, making this decision easy for many Thais. The price advantage makes this transition from offline purchases into online ones an obvious choice for many Thais.
Lotterie tickets in Thailand are pre-printed with anti-counterfeiting features to prevent counterfeiting. Tickets are sold in pairs, and various prize categories are offered – the top prize alone is worth six million baht and is paid out as cash; all prizes amounts are listed on the back of every ticket.
As well as the main prize draw, there are also other prize categories with lower payouts: second prize is two million baht; third prize is 100,000 baht and fourth prize is 10,000 baht; those who win both second and fourth prizes may also qualify for an extra bonus of 20,000 baht.
Prize winners are announced via state-run TV. The GLO has a special guest known as the Draw Chairman who inspects machines, checks the number of balls in them and looks for any anomalies. After drawing out the main prize, a random ball selected by him determines the order of lesser prizes; once all ten numbers have been taken from each machine to ensure all 10 have been present; officials then remove balls to demonstrate this fact and distribute prizes accordingly; in order to win first place a winner must match all six digits correctly while all remaining prizes follow this same procedure.